Obama the Candidate vs. the Reality of "Obamacare"

There's good news and bad news for the president over the last couple of days. The good news is that he went before the United Auto Workers convention today and kicked everybody's ass around the block. I don't know when it happened, but people somehow forgot what a good candidate this guy is, particularly when he gets that preacher cadence rolling the way he does here. I've heard a lot from the various Republicans about how each one of them is the only one who "can stand up and debate Barack Obama." You really want a piece of this, boys? Think it through.

The bad news is that USA Today and Gallup did a poll that demonstrated, graphically, that the howling misinformation and malinformation aimed at his signature domestic policy achievement, apparently has had its desired effect:

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So three-quarters of the people polled believe that the mandate portion of the Affordable Care Act is "unconstitutional." Now, of course, in the literal sense, none of them actually have any idea whether it's constitutional or not. What this number means is a) that a lot of them have heard that it's unconstitutional from a source they consider reliable on such matters, and/or b) that, in this case, "unconstitutional" actually means "making me buy a product from one of the most hated industries in the whole economy." In both cases, however, this is trouble for the president, even if the Supreme Court eventually rules his way, in no small part because that ruling might come long after it could do him any possible good in the fall. And, even if the Court rules his way, it's not going to change many minds in the latter group anyway, because their opposition to the mandate is so visceral that it's invulnerable to reason and to the measured decision of a court.

In the narrowest sense, the problem with the ACA in practice always was going to be the mandate, which is why candidate Obama pronounced himself so opposed to one. In the broadest sense, however, the problem with the ACA in practice always was going to be the complicated compromises, jerry-rigged accommodations, and spit-and-model-airplane-glue improvisations that the president got himself entangled in so that the thing would get passed in the first place. (One of these, of course, was the mandate itself.) And, once it got passed, the White House did a godawful job selling its practical benefits in the teeth of the unmitigated crazoid unleashed in opposition to it. (When was the last time you heard anyone from the administration talk about the ACA as a "first step" toward universal coverage, which was how it was peddled at the time of its passage?) This is reflected in another set of numbers from the poll:

A majority of voters — 50% nationwide and 53% in battleground states — consider the law a bad thing. The vast majority of voters feel the law has so far had no effect on them or their families, but more than 40% believe it will ultimately make things worse.

This is truly awful for the president's case, because some of the law's provisions are already implemented. Small-business tax credits are in place. The Pre-Existing Condition Insurance Plan is up and running. There's a new Patient's Bill of Rights. Thousands of families have been able to keep their children on the family health-plan for a longer time, which is a boon to recent graduates who are buried under college debt. Yet the "vast majority" of voters have detected no effect on their families. This is not the kind of disconnect that you want to see.